One More Last Waltz
by ADreamAbove
Summary: If you could go anywhere in time and space, where and when would you choose? Join an exhausted law student as her wish is granted.
1. Introduction

**The Obligatory Introduction**

(Please, I implore you to endure or at least scan the dirge, so I don't have to duke it out with anyone later...)

**Canon concerns**

To the best of my knowledge, this story does not directly conflict with any official timeline. Although I wrote it to occur in the period after Martha's departure and shortly before Donna's arrival, it could conceivably happen anytime.

**Doctor Disclaimer**

I am an American and undertook this composition simply for fun. I do not claim any expertise and, due to my geographical location, did not come of age enamored with (or even exposed to) _Doctor Who_; as such, I do not claim any expertise in the area beyond the limited knowledge I have amassed by ingesting the first 3 seasons of the "new" _Who_. Please do not subject me to scathing Howlers about my ignorance.

**Legal Disclaimer**

This is a composition of pure fiction employing fictional characters owned by the Doctor Who powers that be. I make no assertions of ownership to the franchise or any characters created therein and/or thereto, my claims only encompassing the storyline and characters produced by my own overactive imagination. No infringement is intended and I believe this composition falls under the category of "fair use" pursuant to 17 USC § 107. I will provide the copyright information for all quoted songs at the bottom of each chapter.

**Rating**

T for references to drug use (which I do not condone or participate in, but such substances were all but ubiquitous in the relevant era).

**Comments**

Are greatly appreciated and treasured. Seriously - any and all.

**Forward**

This story was inspired by the inaugural episode of _Doctor Who_'s fourth season, when the Doctor asks Donna where she would like to go. She replies, "I know just the place," and so do I:

#3: The second Saturday in June, 1920: Elmont, New York, when Man o' War, the greatest race horse of all time, won the Belmont Stakes by twenty lengths and set an American record.

#2: June 9, 1973: Elmont, New York (again), when Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, set the world record for the fastest 1 1/2 miles on dirt (which still stands) and became the 11th horse in history to win the Triple Crown.

And #1?

Well...


	2. Nazareth

This story is dedicated to the memory of:

Richard Manuel (April 3, 1943 - March 4, 1986)

Rick Danko (December 29, 1942 - December 10, 1999)

Rest in peace, and, although words are inadequate to express my gratitude for the exquisite music you graced us with, thank you.

Rory emitted a deep sigh of exhaustion as she started orbiting her car and unloading the physical manifestations of the obligations that weighed down her mind. She mentally pleaded with her limbs to function, hoisting a large black professional-style bag over her right shoulder and feeling every pound of the laptop and documents tighty-packed (and sometimes haphazardly-shoved) therein. As she began stacking hardcover books into her arms, she started to sing softly. "I pulled into Nazareth, was feeling 'bout half past dead..." Each boasted roughly eight hundred-odd pages of tiny, proud type, and bore gold-tooled lettering with titles like _Patent Law and Practice_, _Copyright in a Global Information Economy_ and _Complex Litigation: Cases and Materials on Advanced Civil Procedure. _

She nudged Jordan's back seat door closed with her knee and fumbled with her car keys until she managed to elicit the reassuring chirp of car locks cinching into place. Rory had named the red Jeep after Jordan Baker, a character in one of her favorite novels _The Great Gatsby._ She thought it fitting, since the novel's author F. Scott Fitzgerald had named the character after automobile models, but had long ago conceded that she was the only one who noticed or even appreciated this connection.

"I just need some place where I can lay my head..." Feeling like one of the penguins in _Mary Poppins_, she began the long, arduous trundle to her second-floor apartment, each step slightly impeded by the significant weight she dragged along. Scrunching her right shoulder to better manage the bag's weight she started ascending the stairwell, struggling to balance all the materials she had managed to cram into and hook over her arms. As any reasonable human would have pointed out, two trips would have made the journey much less arduous, but as an overworked graduate student forced to regularly operate on five hours of sleep (if she was lucky, and insomnia did not thwart her attempts at relaxation by injecting her consciousness with reminders of her ever-lengthening "to-do" list), she was far, far beyond reason, and had no desire to scale the nineteen steps more than once.

"Hey, mister can you tell me where a man might find a bed?" As Rory passed the fifth step, she noticed with slight concern that the resident sparrows, who had decided to set up shop beneath her overhang, had entered a considerable state of duress. They emitted squeaky, unmistakable sounds of annoyance amid the distinctive rustling of feathers. The maintenance workers had probably uprooted their nest again, despite her insistence that their presence did not bother her. In fact, it was nice to have company. Law school tended to have an isolating effect.

"He just grinned and shook my hand; no was all he..." Rory stopped cold when she noticed a large blue object beneath the stairwell, visible in the spaces between the cement slaps that formed steps. "...said," she finished meekly, her black schoolbag slipping off her shoulder and landing on the step beside her. The two bags she had hooked onto her right arm slid off and tumbled down beside it.

"What in the world?" She muttered, making the mistake of leaning down to peer through the steps for a better look. The books she had so carefully arranged in the crook of her left arm acquiesced to inertia and tumbled forward, littering the steps. _The Retention and Use of Expert Witnesses_ slipped between them to slam against the ground beneath the stairwell, emitting a dampened thud that slightly echoed like a belly flop. She cautiously disentangled her arms and backed down to the ground, her eyes never leaving the large, foreign object as she set out to retrieve her book.

Ducking beneath the stairs, Rory crouched to blindly scoop her right hand across the ground in pursuit of her book. She maintained as wide a berth as possible from and continued to eye the intruder, as one would a wild animal. In structure, the thing resembled the red telephone booths with which she had become rather enamored while gleefully ingesting episode after episode of _Monty Python's Flying Circus_. This one, however, wore a cerulean blue color like shadowed topaz, lacked glass windows and had the words "Police Box" emblazed on the side.

Due to her school schedule and rather reserved nature, she had never become acquainted with her neighbors, despite living right above them for nearly three years. Now, as her fingers finally encountered and clutched the hardcover spine of her wayward textbook, she regretted the lack of socialization. What fascinating people they must be, to acquire such a strange statue to decorate the front of their house!

"I don't know that one. Who's it by?"

Rory jumped, clonking her head on the bottom of the stairwell. With her free hand she rustled her hair around the general vicinity of the rapidly-rising lump and peered about for the source of the voice. "Wha- What?" She stammered, her eyes still flickering around for the voice's origin.

A friendly face appeared from the giant telephone booth, peeking around the side to grin at her. Spiky hair stood on end in the style of the emo-punk movement currently invading the music scene, and she noticed a sprinkling of freckles across the man's features. He spoke again, in quick, bright tones, his words puttering out so rapidly and with such an accent that she was reminded of John Cleese and made her wonder if he ever paused to breathe. "I don't think I know that song, and I'm fairy versed in popular culture." He looked around, his head rotating with the quick, crisp motions of a bird. "We're in the twenty-first century, right? I've tried to keep apprised of the recent developments. Anyway," His attention returned to her. "I hate not knowing things, so... the song. Who's it by?"

_It's official,_ Rory thought to herself. _Law school's finally driven me mad. I'm insane._

© Information:

"The Weight" Performed by the Band, written by Robbie Robertson; originally released on _Music from Big Pink_ (Capitol Records, 1968).


End file.
